Tiger Admits He was Irresponsible, the Penguins Have Greater Concerns

The last week or so has seen two significant returns to public conciousness. Tiger Woods and the Falkland Islands, two subjects bonded together in a sea of relative obscurity.

Both have made me ask “And the point of this is…………………”

On Friday of last week, Tiger Woods appeared in public to express his regret and shame over “his irresponsible and selfish behaviour”.

By public, I mean at a press conference at the TPC Sawgrass clubhouse in Ponte Vedra in front of the media and 40 hand-picked/railroaded friends and family who all had the good grace to have neutral expressions on their faces. His wife was notable by her absence.

By “irresponsible and selfish behaviour”, Tiger was presumably referring to the harem of women that had fallen for his charms (which had nothing to do with his wealth or fame) and that he was unable to keep his niblick in his golf bag for more than about fourteen minutes.

Which was ironically exactly how long this stage-managed regret-fest lasted.

Tiger was “deeply sorry” but admitted that he had transgressed from the path of buddhism because he felt that he was “entitled to the temptations that come with fame and money.” That was the moment that I felt entitled to call him a tosser.

Of course, this story was ‘live’ on Friday but to be honest I spent the weekend actually watching his co-professionals playing the WGC-Accenture Match Play in Arizona and catching up with the curling at the Winter Olympics. I really don’t care enough about Tiger Woods anymore to be more than mildly diverted from watching talented sportsmen and women for whom the sport is the most important thing.

All Tiger did was parade himself in front of the media to discuss his “issues” and how he “would have to work harder to be a better man“. Fine, well done, big pat on head. Now go away and work on this in private because we don’t need to know and I don’t want to waste any more time on your problems.

And speaking of problems, the subject of sovereignty and illegal occupation of land peeked its nose over the parapet. Let joy be unconfined, the Falkland Islands are news again!

28 years after the British sent a sizeable task force to defend the citizens and penguins of this self-governing Overseas Territory of the UK against the invasion by Argentina, this tiny archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean has been dragged back into the public domain.

Once again, Argentina is disputing who Las Islas Malvinas actually belong to and whether the UK is “occupying” them illegally.

Of course, the fact that the British have just begun to drill for oil in the territorial waters has nothing to do with the sabre rattling coming from Buenos Aires and the fact that they have been part of the UK since 1833 seems not to worry the Argentinean government who have now petitioned the United Nations to enforce discussions with the UK to establish who has the right to do what and to whom.

Argentina has imposed shipping restrictions on the waters around the islands and is calling upon its South American neighbours to do the same. They have the support of Presidents Chavez of Venezuela and Ortega of Nicaragua who belive that it “is time to return the territory to its real owners” – in other words, the UK is being irrational and imperial.

I remember the Falklands War in 1982. I seem to recall that the people who lived in the Islands were actually proud to be British. When asked if they wanted to be Argentinean, their answers were strongly in the negative. Of course nobody knows how the penguins and sheep who share the land with the humans felt, but for the sake of argument lets assume that they too are happy enough with the current situation.

The other thing that springs to mind is that there were some Argentinians working in the UK in 1982 who were forced to seek employment in other countries. These were sportsmen who had come to play football in the UK after the World Cup in 1978 and who had to uproot their families and move away as the situation between the two countries deteriorated.

So if war does break out again Carlos Tevez ( Manchester City) may have to leave the country. We might also be able to rid ourselves of Chris De Burgh – he was born in Argentina – although that may be pushing things too far.

Maybe they can go and keep Tiger company while he deals with his issues. Nothing speeds up recovery than “Lady In Red” on a continuous loop.